


consequences for all the stupid things i say

by avosettas



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Autistic Beetlejuice, Child Abuse, Demon Maitlands, Gen, Human Beetlejuice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24138511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avosettas/pseuds/avosettas
Summary: “Humans,” she tells Adam in a whisper when Lawrence limps into his room that night. “Are awful.”// a SLIGHTLY less depressing replay ofmy days here are done(BTB prompt: No Mental Healthcare)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 93
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	consequences for all the stupid things i say

**Author's Note:**

> and we begin banned together bingo 2020! yes i'm still on my bullshit about little beetlejuice and the maitlands as the monsters under his bed.

He does a lot of pacing, their charge. 

Barbara supposes it’s about all he can do, aside from his homework. His mother barely even buys him clothes. 

Anyway, he should be focusing on his homework. Every single test he brings homes has a big red **F** on it, and even though Barbara doesn’t know anything about human schooling, Adam says that F’s are bad. 

She definitely believes him when they hear Lawrence screaming about how sorry he is, a staircase away. “Humans,” she tells Adam in a whisper when Lawrence limps into his room that night. “Are awful.” 

~ 

Of course, Lawrence doesn’t know they’re there. In fact, they didn’t even know his name until recently. 

It’s not usually on his schoolpapers. His mother hardly calls him by it, either. And it’s not like they could ask him, pretty much being the monsters under his bed. 

They learn it from his report card. It’s a few pieces of paper stapled together, in a big orange envelope. Lawrence had taken particular care to not bend it or get it wet or crumple it, like he usually did with the papers he brought home. 

Which meant that _this_ particular paper caught Barbara’s eye immediately. She’d snatched it while his back was turned. 

“What do all the letters mean?” She’d asked Adam after the boy had left the room. 

“How well he’s done, I think,” Adam had replied, pushing his broken glasses up on his nose. “Hey, his name should be in here somewhere.” 

Barbara flipped through it once, twice, again. “Here,” she’d pointed to the top of the second page. 

Adam squinted. “Lawrence Bay-tell-guys Shoggoth.” 

“I think it’s pronounced ‘beetle juice’. Like the star,” Barbara had whispered back, slipping the envelope back out into the open as Lawrence reentered his room. 

So now they knew his name, and also that he had some letters in some classes that were maybe probably useful to humans. Also, he had some issues or something, because some kind of counselor specifically for guidance wanted him to see a therapist. 

Barbara knew he’d already faced retribution from his mother for his grades (though she honestly didn’t know why… surely a letter further on in the alphabet was better, right?), but they’d yet to hear about this counselor for guidance, nor the therapist that the counselor wanted him to see. 

Until tonight. 

Lawrence is fidgeting with something. It’s one of his things, fidgeting - he almost unraveled an entire sock, once, playing with a loose thread. (Barbara says “almost”, because halfway through his mother caught him, threw the sock out, and slapped him across the face. Lawrence didn’t go to school for a few days after that.) 

Hidden in his closet, Barbara is playing with dust bunnies, occasionally throwing them out into the light and making them dance, though Lawrence is too focused on his tone-deaf humming and his fidgeting to see them. Adam, for his part, is trying to make the bed frame creak, but it’s such an old frame that Lawrence seems used to its strange noises. 

And then, the door slams open. 

Barbara’s dust bunnies fall to unseen specks, and she can see Adam hunch up under the bed, trying to see what’s happening through the small crack beneath the bedskirt. In the door frame is Lawrence’s mother, tall and imposing. She’s holding his report card. 

Lawrence is shaking. His humming is louder now, and shakier. “Hi - hi - hi, mom.” 

“Shut up.” The report card hits the bed in front of him with a slap - Barbara can see Lawrence clenching and unclenching his fists, now, and she’s sure if he speaks he’ll repeat his words in groups of three again, like he always does when he’s nervous. 

“Why don’t you tell me,” his mother’s voice is quiet, but filled with a rage that’s palpable, even halfway across the room, “why they want you to see a therapist, Lawrence?” 

“Be - be - because -” His mother raises her hand threateningly. 

“What was that?” 

It’s taking a conscious effort for Lawrence not to repeat the syllable again. “Beeeeeecause,” he says quietly, “they think I have something wrong with me.” 

“There’s a lot wrong with you,” his mother replies almost boredly. “And it’s nothing a therapist can fix.” 

Barbara makes eye contact with Adam, still under the bed, as Lawrence’s mother leaves. Above Adam, Lawrence curls up and cries.


End file.
